Welcome to The Fleer Sticker Project. Since there is so little published information regarding the various team logo sticker sets produced by Fleer over the last 40+ years, I thought I'd post the information I've come across through my years of collecting.

Friday, December 30, 2011

IHOP MLB NFL NBA ABA NHL Team Placemats

In addition to NFL Helmets and NFL Magnets, The International House of Pancakes (IHOP) also offered team placemats from all four major sports leagues which were used to not only promote the local professional sports team, but also promote the local IHOPs in the area as well.

Lets take a look at the examples I've been able to find.

Major League Baseball:

Based on the fact that this placemat honors the 1969 World Champion Mets, I think its most likely that these would have been found in IHOPs in 1970.

I like the fact that they added "This IS Next Year" on the Cubs place mat:

I came across another version of the placemat that features color photos:

I think this version of the placemat is from 1969 as it features Dick Selma who pitched for the Cubs in 1969, but played for the Phillies in 1970. Here is another example of this version where someone was able to get some player autographs:

While the placemat above shows that LA had a ton of IHOPs, the Phillies placemat shows that Philadelphia only had 2:

NFL:

Its interesting that while IHOP and the NFL partnered together on other promotions during the 1970s which allowed IHOP to use NFL logos, for these 1970 placemats, they only had the license from the Players Association so the uniform on the placemat is somewhat generic.

NBA:

There were even placemats for ABA teams:

NHL:

I am sure there are a number of other team placemats besides the ones I've been able to find, but obviously most of these didn't survive, so they don't seem to show up for sale very often.